Abstract
In recent decades, decisionmakers have increasingly faced conflicts juxtaposing demands for self-determination and inclusion. Political theorists term this juxtaposition “the boundary problem.” They have offered normative solutions, especially for “just inclusion,” proposing what states owe to exogenous individuals like migrants and refugees. Meanwhile, as I show, legal scholars have developed parallel observations regarding what I term “just exclusion,” concerning how self-determination by sub-state collectives, such as minority nations, interacts with the inclusion rights of members of the majority. I make, first, a descriptive contribution, showing decisionmakers how political theories of “just inclusion” and legal theories of “just exclusion” are complementary, uniting to frame the boundary problem. Second, I make a prescriptive contribution, deploying this frame to lay out a stepwise approach so decisionmakers can more logically work through boundary-problem conflicts.
Highlights
Who is included in “we, the people”? Who is excluded, and on what grounds? What territory is ours versus theirs? These determinations, though esoteric, are elemental. They are like the forces in the atom, so constitutive of the world around us they hide in plain sight
They separate domestic politics, which happens within polities, from geopolitics, which happens between them
Demotic arrangements relate to the establishment and preservation of demotic boundaries, thereby enshrining self-determination for collective peoples
Summary
Who is included in “we, the people”? Who is excluded, and on what grounds? What territory is ours versus theirs? These determinations, though esoteric, are elemental. Rather than enshrining collective self-determination, liberal-democratic arrangements guard individual rights. The reason relates to what I call “transboundary hydraulics.” Again, boundary-problem conflicts involve complex interactions between “constitutionally prior” demotic arrangements, protecting collective self-determination, and “constitutionally post” liberal-democratic arrangements, guarding individual rights.
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